Adriaen Jansz. Ocker 1621/2 - c.1689

An Italianate landscape with a figure and his dog by a lake, a hill-town beyond

Oil painting on canvas 58.5 x 82 cm., and contained in a good mid-18th century carved and giltwood frame

Signed lower left corner “A Ocker”

Provenance: private collection Devon

The precise date of Ocker's birth is unknown, but he was born in Amsterdam, the son of the painter Jan Adriaensz Ocker (b.1586). He is documented as being 23 in November 1645 and again as 35 in 16561. He is last documented on 2nd June 1689, and is thought to have died soon afterwards. Works by him are very rare. This may be explained by his artistic style being close to that of better-known painters of the Italianate school, to whom his works have frequently been attributed. The RKD in the Hague, for instance, notes several paintings by him which have had bogus signatures attached to them of such well-known painters and contemporaries as the Haarlem-born Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem ( 1620-1683) and the Utrecht painter Willem de Heusch (1625-1692).

Like many of his fellow landscape painters, Ocker was swept up in the vogue for the Italianate style, with landscapes suffused with the Golden Light of the south: a stark contrast to the northern grey-and-brown duneland landscapes of van Goyen and the Haarlem school which held sway over Dutch taste in the 2nd quarter of the 17th century